News Digest
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping dead
BEIJING (AP)—Deng Xiaoping,
the last of China’s Communist revo
lutionaries who abandoned Mao’s
radical policies and pushed the world’s
most populous nation into the global
community with capitalist-style re
forms, died Wednesday.
Xinhua, China’s official news
agency, said he was 93, although the
birth date in most records would have
made him 92 when he died.
Though Deng retired from his last
official post in 1990 and had not been
seen in public for three years, he spent
much of the past decade orchestrat
ing Chinese politics from behind the
scenes with a loosely-defined title:
“paramount leader.”
While he put an end to the iron
rice bowl—lifetime jobs for all—he
ruled with an iron fist. The military
suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen
Square pro-democracy protests—be
lieved to have taken place cm his final
orders — killed hundreds, perhaps
thousands, and put a blot on the eco
nomic progress Deng had achieved.
He died at 9:08 p.m. Wednesday
(7:08 a.m. CST) of respiratory and
circulatory failure brought on by lung
infections and the Parkinson’s disease
that had stricken him long ago,
Xinhua announced.
The announcement of Deng’s
death came about 3 a.m. Thursday.
The first test of Deng’s legacy will
be whether his hand-picked successor,
Communist Party General Secretary
Jiang Zemin, and the other younger
technocrats he installed in the 1990s
will weather political maneuvering
that is expected to intensify in the
coming months.
No one is expected to supplant
Jiang, who received a boost in claim
ing Deng’s mantle by being named
chairman of Deng’s 459-member fu
neral committee.
Deng succeeded Mao Tse-tung in
the nearly two-year power struggle
that followed the revolutionary
leader’s death in 1976.
China was riven by fear and pov
erty after the decade-long Cultural
Revolution, an experiment in radical
policies dining which millions were
persecuted or killed for political rea
sons.
Deng immediately put China on
the road to a market economy, seek
ing foreign investment and encourag
ing the world’s most populated coun
try to set about making money.
“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black
or white, as long as it catches mice,”
was his most famous saying.
He abolished farming communes,
allowed some private enterprises and
established special economic zones to
produce goods for export.
But he chastised Westerners who
hoped China was turning capitalist,
and said his aim was to prove that so
cialism can achieve prosperity. He
called his mix of market economics
and state ownership “socialism with
Chinese characteristics.”
Noted for his sharp intellect and
superior organizational skills, Deng
became a political commissar in the
Communist army, fighting the Japa
nese from 1937-45 and the National
ists in the 1945-49 civil war.
Three years after the 1949 found
ing of the People’s Republic of China,
Deng became vice premier. By 1956,
he was on the Politburo Standing
Committee - the most powerful rul
ing body.
Former U.S. Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, who worked with
Deng and China during much of the
1980s, said Deng was tempered by his
days as a Communist guerrilla and
never lost sight of than. ;
“He could be tough. He could also
be brutal,” Shultz said.
“And you could see the spark of
creativity that allowed him to put
China on a new and productive path.
“He has transformed China and
thereby has had an immense impact
on the shape of the future.”
UNL students, professor react to death j
' r v '■ - ::
By Brad Davis
Staff Reporter
With the death of China’s leader
Deng Xiaoping, Chinese on cam
pus reflected on Deng's accom
plishments while looking toward a
new era of younger, more open
minded leadership.
“He represents a leader in the
transition period—from a govern
ment that was totally closed and
agrarian to an open economy,” law
student Matt Zhang said.
Deng was one of the early Com
munist leaders who changed the
nation's system of equally-distrib
uted wealth, Zhang said.
“After Mao (Tfee-tung) died, he
became a primary force in the Chi
nese government and started the
process toward economic develop
ment,” Zhang said, “He had a vi
sion and knew that the only way to
lead China into the next century
• was to focus on the economy
Graduate student Kui Yi said
Deng also helped liberate the Chi
nese economy.
“Under his leadership our coun
try was opened with his Open Door
policy, which changed the economy
from state-run to market-based. He
made a lot of progress and is well
respected in the Chinese culture,”
Yi said.
Despite Deng's social and eco
nomic reforms, Chinese at UNL
said Deng remains connected in
their minds with one event: the
Tiananmen Square massacre, in
which hundreds and perhaps thou
sands of pro-democracy protesters
were killed.
Suping Lu, economics and po
litical science professor and librar
ian, said the killing of students in
Tiananmen Square was a drawback
for Deng. The power struggle was
triggered not only by the fight for
democracy, but because of the
economy and inflation.
“If they could have solved the
problem earlier and used police
force, things wouldn’t have esca
lated to that point; but he had to
step in — the killing was inevi
table,” Lu said.
“It was him (Xiaoping) that or
dered the massacre where they shot
and killed a lot of students. In no
way am I condoning killing stu
dents, but I think by doing that, he
put China in the right direction,”
Lu said.
“If the democracy movement
was successful, and there was a
drastic move toward capitalism, it
would have been total chaos, like
Eastern Europe.”
The shift toward a more demo
cratic government is perhaps inevi
table, according to many Chinese
students. But die change will not
happen instantaneously, they said.
“Maybe the impact of his death
will be seen in the next generation,
when the political culture and more
democratic thinking will be in
place,” Lu said.
“Today is the end of the era for
China in which it is a dictatorship.
From now on, I don’t see how any
one else can be a dictator,” said
Ping Liu, past president of the Chi
nese Students’ Association.
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China m 1949.
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■ tn 195$, became e member of
Politburo Standing Comrnfttee -
the most powerful ruling body.
■ FeB into political disfavor twice
because of ties to Mao’s rivals during
the Cultural Revolutionrwas
sent to work at atrector factory.
■ Returned to leadership in 1973. only
to be purged once again in 1976.
■ Returned to position as vice premier
in 1977.
■ Believed to have given final orders
for the mtiitary suppression of the
1989 Tiananmen Square
pro-democracy protests.
AP/Amy Kranz
M«tHanby/DN
Lusty hound sprung from slammer
PANAMA, N.Y. — It was lust that landed Ralph in the slammer,
but his friends banded together and bailed him out.
Now the former stray dog, a butterscotch-colored short hair, is li
censed and legal, co-owned by some 30 families in this village about
65 miles south of Buffalo.
For years Ralph was offered shelter on cold nights, food and even
medical attention by residents who didn’t realize the dog didn’t belong
to anyone.
Apparently, that’s the way Ralph wanted it. Now that he’s licensed,
the pooch is free to make his regular route among houses and trailers.
Expecting Ralph to stay put would be against his nature, said Bob
Crosstey, who first gave Ralph his now-legal name in 1988,
“(If you) tie him up, you might as well shoot him,” Crossley said. _
Ralph, a German shepherd and Akita mix, became the official vil
lage dog after an animal control officer took him into custody last month.
The owners of a female dog complained when Ralph kept vigil from
the btEer side of a fence for three days.
His friends turned in a license application and fee jto spring the
amorous pooch. There are plans to get Ralph neutered in the spring.
Court: Abortion protesters can confront
WASHINGTON (AP) — Anti
abortion demonstrators have a free
speech right to confront clinic patients
and staffers up close on public streets
and sidewalks as long as they stay
more than 15 feet away from the clinic,
the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
In splintered voting, the court
struck down a federal judge’s order
that had kept most demonstrators at
abortion clinics in the Buffalo and
Rochester, N.Y., areas 15 feet away
from any patient or staff member.
The court said that a “floating
buffer zone” — on public byways —
violates demonstrators’ free-speech
rights, as guaranteed by the
Constitution’s First Amendment.
But the court upheld a fixed buffer
zone that keeps demonstrators at least
15 feet away from clinic doorways,
driveways and driveway entrances.
The court also upheld a part of the
federal judge’s order requiring so
called sidewalk counselors who ap
proach patients within the fixed buffer
zones to retreat when patients indicate
a desire not to be counseled.
Both sides of the abortion debate
claimed victory.
“There is no longer an exception
to ... free speech ... when the issue
deals with abortion,” said Jay Sekulow
of the American Center for Law and
Justice.
Marilyn Buckham, executive di
rector of the Buffalo, N.Y., GYN
Womenservices, one of four abortion
clinics where anti-abortion protests
were held in 1992, said:
“They upheld the buffer zone,
which is the heart of this case. It is
gratifying because it says to us the
Supreme Court understood the ques
tion and there is common sense in the
Constitution. We’re thrilled.” -
The vote was 8-1 to strike down as
unconstitutional the floating buffer
zones. All but Justice Stephen G.
Breyer joined that part of Rehnquist’s
opinion.
The court’s vote to uphold as con
stitutional the fixed 15-foot buffer
zone around clinic entrances and park
ing lots was 6-3.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony
M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas
voted to strike down all of the judge’s
order.
In other action, the court:
■ Ruled 7-2 in a Maryland case
that police can order passengers, as
well as drivers, to get out of vehicles
during traffic stops.
■ Agreed unanimously in a
Florida decision that states cannot can
cel early-release credits after giving
them to inmates in an effort to ease
prison overcrowding.
' . ~ 1 1 -*-M ' 1--1
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